Trial: Guy’s and St Thomas’ will test the “eICU” system Picture: Google

Doctors are to monitor critically ill patients by video link from another hospital in a radical move to tackle the skills shortage in the NHS.

A London hospital trust today announced the first UK trials of technology that could drive up the standard of care at night and weekends, when wards are typically staffed by junior doctors.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ will test the “eICU” system, which uses high-definition cameras to enable consultants to check on patients from a centralised control room and alert and advise bedside teams on problems.

The system is already in use in more than 300 US hospitals where the Philips “telemedicine” technology is said to have cut patient death rates by 27 per cent and reduced hospital stays by 23 per cent.

Doctors compare the technology with air traffic control, where the landing and take-off of planes is co-ordinated from a single location. It means that consultants based at St Thomas’ will be able to assess and monitor patients at Guy’s several miles away.

Dr Richard Beale, clinical director of perioperative, critical care and pain services at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “It’s like an airport having a control tower, supporting what is going on throughout the system, so that the overall quality goes up and senior people are available when needed.

“The results in the US have generally been pretty encouraging. We just want to know whether it works in the NHS.”

Details of the trial, funded by a £2.85 million grant from Guy’s and St Thomas’ charity, were being made public today in a presentation at the King’s Fund think tank in central London.

It will take about nine months to install the computer hardware, which will be subject to two to three years’ live testing on patients in high-dependency and critical care wards. These will include stroke patients and those admitted to A&E after traumatic injury.

If successful, the system could be rolled out to district general hospitals in the suburbs and the southern home counties that send patients with greatest need to Guy’s and St Thomas’.

It could eventually allow consultants to log on at home and check the condition of patients as they come around after surgery, and pass on advice to hospital-based colleagues.

Project managers say the aim is not to cut jobs but, at a time of the NHS struggling to fill key posts, to ensure the highest possible standards of care.

Dr Brian Rosenfeld, chief medical officer for telehealth at Philips, said the system allowed an intensive care doctor to oversee up to 150 beds. He said: “That is a huge improvement in productivity. The potential cost reductions are really myriad.”

The cameras are said to be so powerful that they can detect whether the pupil in a patient’s eye dilates to bright light. Patients will also be “wired up” to a series of monitors programmed to raise the alarm if their condition suddenly changes.

Dr Rosenfeld added: “We are able to identify clinical changes earlier than most clinicians are able to pick them up.

“If you depend on your bedside team to identify that there is a problem, then you are in a reactive care mode. What we have tried to do is change that to a proactive care mode.”

A patient’s consent is not required but families will be consulted. The system does not record video “footage” of patients. Those in the United States were said to find it “extremely reassuring”.

The groundbreaking initiative is possible because Guy’s and St Thomas’ are part of King’s Health Partners, an academic research centre that also includes King’s College and King’s College Hospital.